


Last Day's Dawn

by bioticbootyshaker



Category: Dragon Age II
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-27
Updated: 2014-09-27
Packaged: 2018-02-18 22:32:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 834
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2364413
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bioticbootyshaker/pseuds/bioticbootyshaker
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the longest time, Fenris has convinced himself that the most difficult thing about love is leaving himself vulnerable. But after spending time with Bethany, after letting her find her way under his ribs, he learns that the most difficult thing is saying goodbye.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Last Day's Dawn

Fenris watched her sleep, the shape of her body slight and still under the heavy blankets. He thought that it would be easier to tell her goodbye when the sun touched the sky and the sweat dried on their bodies and they spoke whatever foolish, trembling words their hearts demanded they speak — but the sun was rising now, painting the sky a dim orange-pink, and he was still not ready to let her go.

Strange, how quickly she had gotten under his skin. One moment, Fenris had regarded her as icily and warily as he did all mages, and the next… 

Bethany was unlike anyone he had ever known. She was a sweet girl, of course, but that wasn’t it. She had lived her life in fear of being what she couldn’t help being, protected by a family that loved her and endangered themselves to keep her safe. Because of that, she loved deeply, and strongly, but she carried a heavy guilt with her. Fenris couldn’t remember ever having looked into a pair of eyes with more sadness in his life — so dark and deep he felt he could drown in them if he wasn’t careful. 

There were many ways to be chained, he understood. There was the slip of a collar around your throat, and there was the understanding that you could never be more than what you were; that you were confined to your body, and that you could not live without fear. 

“I’ve never really lived,” she had admitted, quietly against his throat. “I kept waiting for it to be all right. For it to be safe, but it never will be.” She was hesitant, Fenris knew, because she didn’t want to cause him pain. Her fingertips wandered old scars, what would have caused him revulsion had anyone else touched him, instead making his lips twitch with a smile. “It will never be safe for someone like me,” Bethany whispered. “I know that… that we have terrible power, and I know that we can never be trusted—”

Fenris took her hand and pressed a kiss against her palm. She had the power to set him ablaze with the flick of her wrist, but still his mouth was soft and open against her. He had suffered under the hands of a mage — he had been treated cruelly and terribly and in ways he could not speak of — but those had been different hands. 

Bethany’s heart beat with different blood. 

She wanted to go, that was what it all came down to. The world was wide and wild and beautiful and terrible and she wanted to go. 

Her brother was a Warden, her sister Champion, and she was lost somewhere in the middle. The Circle would claim her, eventually, as it did all apostates, and while Fenris might have entertained the idea once upon a time, he would tear out the throat of any templar who made the attempt now. 

He would not stand in her way, one any path she chose to walk. No one understood better than he did what it meant to forge your own way, to stand at the precipice and decide for yourself how you wanted to live, where you wanted to go, under which section of sky you wanted to make your home. 

Still, as the sun rose and cut through the room, as it inched up her body, glowing softly on her dark skin, Fenris felt the brunt of her loss even before she was gone. 

****

 _Come with me_ , she tried to say, but Fenris had built himself a life in Kirkwall, and the words remained trapped behind her teeth. 

They stood together in the growing light, waiting as her wagon was prepared. The driver was an unsmiling, unhelpful man, but when Fenris snapped that they needed a few moments, he was made more agreeable after watching the stroke of his fingers over the hilt of his sword. 

He held her hips, and he thought of the first time she had come to him, lips and fingers and skin shivering. Fenris remembered how afraid he had been, when her hands had touched him, how he’d expected her touch to leave marks behind, to burn and cut and damage. And he remembered how he’d sighed in relief when she had been blessedly, blissfully soft, how he had melted against her when her lips had found the pulse in his throat and pressed against it. 

_Stay with me_ , he tried to say, but Bethany had never placed her feet on solid ground and chosen her own way; she had never breathed in a place that was not heavy with guilt and shame. The words remained trapped behind his teeth. 

Instead, he pulled her close and held her as the sky brightened. Good enough, he supposed, for an apostate girl and a former slave who had clawed his way to freedom through bone and blood.

Good enough to stand together; to be good to one another, one last time.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for nephili on tumblr! Bethris remains one of my absolute favorite ships, and I'd like to apologize for the... open-endedness of this. I think it's good though, that I didn't make it too final. You're totally free to fill in the blanks. :)


End file.
